Act of Love (13 page)

Unfolded, the note read in cut out letters:

Your wife or daughter next time, nigger. I'm watching. I'll always be watching. Back off and stay out of my way. The hand belongs to a lovely lady. I have her head and the other hand. I don't even think she's missing yet. Lived alone, from the looks of things. I took my time with her. She may well be my masterpiece. Maybe you can give her relatives a hand. From what I found in the house I believe her name is Patricia. But I won't say anymore. I like to think of her body lying in her house with nothing but the heat. I cut off the air conditioner. It pleases me to think of how it will smell. I may even go back to check on the stench, since I have the key. Hurry up and find her, if you can. Maybe I'll meet you there.

And watch your family, nigger. I like black meat. It goes so well with southern recipes, like Plantation Chicken.

THE HACKER

"God," Hanson said between his teeth. "Oh my, God." Rachel was standing in the doorway of the den. Her lips were trembling ever so slightly. "What is it? Tell me? What's wrong? I know something's wrong." "JoAnna, where is she?" Rachel's lips were trembling violently now. "Why?"

"For God's sake, Rachel, tell me."

"The movie."

"Which movie?" Hanson's voice had an edge of impatience to it now.

Rachel shook her head. "I don't know. I told them not to go to the drive-in. An in-door movie somewhere. Please, Marve, what's wrong?"

"JoAnna may be in danger."

"How?"

"I haven't time to explain, just listen to me. I'm going to drive over to that theater on Southmore. It's close, it might be the one. You call the other in-door theaters and have them paged. If you don't locate them, call the drive-in. They may have gone anyway. I know kids."

Rachel quit trembling, seemed to grab hold of her emotions. "Okay."

"I'll explain when I get back, just trust me." Hanson looked at his watch: 10:22. He just might make it to the theater. The features nearly always let out somewhere between 10:30 and 10:45. He hoped for the latter tonight. "I'm going now. You lock the door and do like I said. You don't find them, call the police department, get out an alert for them. Tell them who you are, that your husband's a police officer. Hear?"

Rachel nodded.

"And Rachel?"

"Yes, Marve?"

"Stay away from that box, please."

Rachel nodded again, as if words were too hard to form.

"I'll explain when I get back. Now start calling."

Almost at a run, Hanson started for the door.

*

He had killed time accurately. They were coming out of the theater in droves now. The couple he was looking for separated from the crowd and walked arm in arm for the Grand Prix. They were laughing, leaning together. Good. Real good. He was glad they were happy, that would make it all the better when he soured it for them.

Now, if this kid just wasn't a "good" boy that took his date home promptly after a movie, then all would be well
...
for him, anyway.

Tommy and JoAnna got in the Grand Prix. She sat next to him. The sleek automobile moved out on Southmore, pierced the crisp night air like a sharp shadow, the motor humming a soft, contented insect drone.

The blue van followed at a comfortable distance.

*

"You know," Tommy Rae said, "the part I liked best was where the chick offered Dracula the joint and said this is some good shit . . ." "And Dracula," JoAnna interjected, "said, I don't smoke shit."

Tommy Rae laughed. "Your Transylvanian accent leaves a little to be desired, but not bad."

Tommy Rae turned off Southmore, headed down a long, residential street.

*

The blue van didn't turn off after them. It continued down Southmore at an accelerated speed, shaded a red light, and ran another to the tune of blaring horns and loud curses.

After awhile, the van turned left.

JoAnna, almost in Tommy's lap, began to work her tongue in his ear.

"Hey," Tommy said, "that's not doing much for my driving."

"Then why don't you find a place to park?" JoAnna said.

"Well, I sure ain't takin' you out for a soda."

*

JoAnna, kissing him on the ear, said, "This isn't the way we usually go."

"Nope. Got a new place. Hell, old Humper's Hill is getting too crowded. They're gonna have to start charging admission. 'Sides, Clarence said he and Lacy got chased out of there by the cops last time they was up there."

"Oh."

"Uh huh, but I've got a humdinger spot. It's . . ."

The screeching of tires distracted him. A blue van wheeled out of a shadowed side street, its lights slicing the Grand Prix like a razor. Then it was behind them, riding close.

"Crazy fool!" Tommy said.

The van bumped the Grand Prix's bumper. Hard!

"Goddamnit!" Tommy said. He stepped on the gas. The Grand Prix leaped forward like a striking cobra. It quickly outdistanced the van by two car lengths, but the van was moving up fast again.

"Can you outrun him?" JoAnna said.

"I don't know. He's got something special under that hood," Tommy said.

"What's he doing?"

"How the fuck do I know? I just met the sonofabitch."

Tommy was moving too fast to take a side street, and the way the van was riding his tail he didn't dare slow down. An island of concrete topped by dirt and grass separated the street. He passed a couple of crossovers but was afraid to take them at such high speed. Except for the Prix and the van, the street was empty of traffic.

The van slammed into their rear again, tossed JoAnna forward into the dash.

"God! You okay?" Tommy said.

JoAnna leaned back holding her head. "Just a bump."

"Get your seat belt on, but first pull mine around me and buckle it."

JoAnna reached across him, fished for the belt, found it, clasped it together around his lean waist.

The van bumped them again.

JoAnna hung to Tommy, then quickly moved to the other side and clamped the passenger's belt around her waist.

The island was ending.

A car was coming down the street now, opposite lane toward them.

"Hang on," Tommy said.

"Jesus," JoAnna said, "you're not going to . . ."

When the car, a white Volkswagen, was almost on them, Tommy jerked a hard left in front of it. Rubber burned and tires screeched. The Grand Prix seemed to lean to the left, almost as if it were trying to do a wheel stand, then suddenly it was level again and moving down a narrow street like a bullet.

The Volkswagen swerved, ran up over the curb and came to rest in a front lawn, its tires buried halfway in grass and dirt.

The van slammed to a stop. Backed fifty feet, stopped again, then quickly turned left after the disappearing taillights of The Grand Prix.

"You could have killed us," JoAnna said.

"No shit. I'm about six inches higher in this seat right now." Tommy checked the rearview mirror. Distant dots of lights were becoming less distant by the second. "The motherfucker's still with us."

The pursuing lights became lamps, then great shimmering moons.

"Christ, I can't outrun the sonofabitch. I'm taking this sucker back out into somewhere."

"There's a precinct station near here," JoAnna said. "Go there. It's not far off. It's on—"

"I know where it is. Hang on, baby, whoever this is, whatever he wants, the bastard's going to have to earn it."

The speedometer was at eighty. The van clamped to their tail as if it were being pulled by the big, sleek car.

"Ever seen someone take a right turn at eighty?"

"Tommy, no, that's crazy."

The Grand Prix seemed to reach around the turn. Tires screamed. Sparks flew out from beneath the car as the axle bounced down and scraped pavement. The car began to skid. The tail end mounted a curb, went up and over, dug down in the soft dirt of a front lawn and hung.

The van didn't attempt to make the crazy turn. It passed by the street, started slowing down for a stop. It took some distance before the van was slow enough to stop, pull in a driveway, and turn around.

Tommy floorboarded the car. It yawned and heaved but remained hung.

The van was picking up speed, making its way toward them.

The front door to the house opened.

JoAnna, looking over her shoulder, saw porchlights come on. "Tommy, someone's up."

Tommy popped his seatbelt off, jerked the door open, stepped out. "Call the police."

It was a man standing in the doorway wearing candy cane pajamas. He had a shotgun in his hand.

"You crazy kids, I'm gonna call the cops."

Tommy was literally hopping up and down. "Great, great, call them."

The van turned at the corner.

"Call them," Tommy yelled again and he was back inside the Grand Prix in one smooth motion.

"Tommy," JoAnna whined, "it's the van."

Tommy fastened his seatbelt, slipped the Grand Prix in reverse, gassed it. The Grand Prix rocked. Thick, grey smoke plumed up from the tires and mixed with the night.

The van door opened.

The man in pajamas was yelling something.

All Tommy and JoAnna could hear was the whine of the engine and the digging of the tires.

JoAnna looked at the van. A dark shape, a man, was stepping from it. She couldn't make out his features. He was wearing some kind of long coat, and now as he came from the van, he flipped a hood up and over his head. Was he wearing a raincoat?

The car backed out of the ruts slowly, digging a longer trench as it went.

The man in the pajamas discharged his shotgun in the air.

The man from the van jerked his head at the house, saw the man standing there. He had been so wrapped up in his quarry, he had noticed neither lights nor the man.

Tommy jerked the Grand Prix in drive and eased down on the gas, then floor boarded it again. The car jumped out of the self-made ruts, bounced over the curb and was off.

The man in the raincoat leaped back in the van. JoAnna, looking out the back window, thought she saw something in his hand. Something long and shiny.

In less than thirty seconds the van was hot on their tires again.

Tommy tried to keep his speed moderate. The van bumped them twice, once nearly forcing them off the road. It was pulling around them on the left.

"Let him pass, Tommy, let him pass."

"Pass, hell I He wants our ass. Another coat of paint and we'll be wearing that van."

The van was pulling up neck and neck now. The driver of the van, the hood pulled up over his head, looked like some kind of monk.

"Why, why, why?" JoAnna said.

"Who am I, Hurkos?" Tommy growled. "Sorry, babe."

The street was opening out into the highway now. Lights were abundant.

"Tommy, this hill is too damn steep."

"Shut up and pray nothing is coming."

The road suddenly started down. Tommy made no effort to check his speed. He held the pedal to the floor. The great black car leaped out into space and dove down the other side, seemed to fall a great distance before the tires touched pavement again. The force of impact nearly jerked Tommy out of his seatbelt, but he stayed with the wheel, trying to remember and respond to the old adage of turning in the direction of the skid.

Out into the busy highway the car went, whipping its tail to the left, very fast. It looked like an elongated, black top with yellow eyes whirling aroundandaroundand- around.

A tire blew. The naked wheel, flapping slabs of black rubber around it like hooked fish, tore up concrete and popped up sparks to the height of ten feet.

Half a dozen cars barely avoided hitting the Grand Prix before it rolled twice, then came to rest on the opposite side of the highway lying on its right side.

The van, which had checked its speed before the hill, cruised down slowly, turned right and headed off unnoticed.

SATURDAY . . . 11:15
p.m.

Frustrated, disappointed, he ditched the van near his car, shed his raincoat and concealed the bayonet within its folds. His hands were shaking. He had been cheated of his prize. He had given them fear, but he had not satiated his urge. That came only with the work of his blade, with the spilling of dark red blood.

He walked the short distance to his car, his footsteps thudding in his ears like frightened heartbeats.

*

Over and over Rachel told herself to be calm.

Her fingers weren't listening. They kept twitching and crawling together with their companions, wringing, clenching. She sat next to the phone, leaning in her chair as though

ready to leap.

She had called all the theaters, even the Houston ones. Paging had accomplished nothing. She had even tried the drive-ins. Same lack of results. Next she had called the police station and explained that her husband was a police officer and that they were trying to find their daughter. And then she had done what Marvin had asked her not to do.

She had looked in the box.

After a trip to the bathroom to discharge the contents of her stomach, she had returned to the box, and this time with her emotions in control, she read the note.

The Hacker. The Houston Fiend was after her baby.

God, Marve . . . call, come home with the kids, something. Anything.

She thought of Joe Clark. He was a cop, Marve's best friend. Maybe he could do something. What, she didn't know, but she was ready to clutch at straws.

Quickly now, dial and state the problem, then get off, don't tie up the line. She suddenly realized that she was calling Joe for comfort. She needed to reach out and know someone was on the other end.

She dialed his number.

The phone rang several times.

No one answered.

At 11:44 Hanson came in the door. Rachel almost ran to meet him. There was no one with him. She asked the question. Hanson looked at her for a long, silent moment, then said:

"Nothing. Not a goddamned thing!"

"Oh ChristI" Rachel said, and she began to cry.

His eyes wet with tears, Hanson went to her and held her.

"You did what I asked?" he said.

"Yes," Rachel said tearfully. "Nothing. The police are searching."

"Good," he patted her back and pulled her hair close to his face, smelled her gentle fragrance. "They'll find them."

She lifted her head and looked him squarely in the eyes. "Alive? I read the note."

Hanson couldn't say anything.

"The Hacker, Marve. The Hacker is after us because of you."

Swallowing, he said. "I know. I'm going to call the Pasadena station, tell them about the note."

Rachel allowed Hanson to move away from her, and when he was nearly to the den she said, "I have already. When I read the note I called them back."

"You saw . . . what was in the box?"

She nodded.

"I'm sorry," Hanson said.

"If anything happens to JoAnna, don't use that word. Don't use any words. They won't help." Rachel turned and walked to the kitchen.

Hanson watched her go. He suddenly realized that in his haste to find JoAnna he had left Rachel alone. She would have been at the mercy of the madman. He was losing his head. Time after time.

"God," he said aloud, and he began to tremble.

*

There were so many lights it looked like Christmas. Red, blue, yellow and white splashed abstract designs against the canvas of night.

The street was filled with automobiles: halted traffic—many of the occupants outside their machines staring gooseneck over the tops of cars and the heads of people—police cars, ambulances, a wrecker, and two lime green fire trucks. Shortly thereafter came Barlowe of
The Bugle.

Barlowe abandoned his car, and using shoulders and press card, made his way through the throng of on-lookers and up to the boundary that authorities had made with their vehicles and personnel.

The Grand Prix was lying on its side. It looked like some kind of giant bug about to flip over on its back, but trying desperately not to. A firetruck had pulled up on the roof side and pushed its butt against it to keep it from rocking on over and smashing down on its top. A wrecker supported the other side. Two firemen swarmed up the wrecker wench and came down on the car's side, peered through the glass. Inside they could see two unconscious forms, the closest, a teenage boy, dangled downwards, held in place by his seatbelt. The other, a girl, lay with her head against the smashed passenger window. There was blood mixed with the shattered glass.

One of the fireman tried the door. No go. When the car had rolled the door had been crushed. It would have to be cut open, or with a little luck they could lower The Grand Prix down and go in from the girl's side.

They set about attaching the wrecker's grappling device to the underside of the car, next to the driver's door. When the hook was fastened securely, the firefighters climbed down.

Barlowe yelled to one of the bunkersuited firemen who had climbed down from the Grand Prix.

"Bad?"

The firemen looked at him. Barlowe waved his press card, inched around two policeman without resistance. The police were accustomed to the press, and especially Barlowe. He was a familiar figure to them—.

Barlowe made his way over to the man, repeated, "Bad?"

"Could be," the man answered. "Couple of kids in there. Neither are moving. Man, you press guys get here quick."

Barlowe smiled. "Police radio in my car helps. I was out this way already."

The firefighter nodded. "Well, excuse me, I think they're just about ready for me." With that he strode away from Barlowe toward the Grand Prix and the wrecker.

The wrecker driver, watching and working carefully, was pulling away from the Grand Prix, tugging it forward, keeping the winch taut. When the once sleek automobile was hanging by support of the wrecker alone, its right side tires just touching the pavement, the winch began to slowly unwind. Carefully, the driver settled the car into an upright position.

That done, the two firemen that had climbed on the car and looked inside, ran out to try the passenger door.

No dice. The roll had frozen it as well.

The burly firefighter who had spoken to Barlowe turned and yelled something to a crowd of men. A moment later one ran forward holding an instrument that at first glance looked like some kind of chainsaw. Barlowe recognized it immediately. It was a gas driven tool, nicknamed The Jaws of Life, and in less than three minutes it could pull the door off the Grand Prix as easily as a knife sliding through peanut butter.

As the fireman began working on the boy's side the air was suddenly full of the machine's engine whine; and shortly thereafter, the screech of its "jaws" chewing metal.

Less than three minutes later the fireman moved back and killed the machine. The door was off.

A paramedic ran forward and leaned into the car, checked the boy's pulse. He took a stethoscope from around his neck, slipped the ends in his ears, put it to the boy's throat, then moved it to his chest. After a moment he straightened himself up and moved from the car.

"Unfasten the seatbelt and take him out," the paramedic said. "This kid's dead."

Two large firemen responded, and then, as the boy was removed and laid out beside the car, the paramedic crawled across the seat to the girl.

One of the firemen said, "Boy's neck is broken, I think."

"Looks that way," the other one said.

From inside the car the paramedic yelled, "This one's alive."

SUNDAY . . . 12:05
a.m

The phone rang. Hanson picked it up promptly. His voice was a dry croak. "Hello."

"Is this the Hanson residence?"

"It is."

Rachel, who had been sitting in the kitchen draped over a cup of cold coffee, came into the room the moment the phone rang.

"Lieutenant, this is Sergeant Fierd at the Pasadena Police Department."

"Yes," Hanson said weakly.

"There's been an accident, I'm afraid."

"God. JoAnna?"

"Yes, but she's fine. Nothing more than a good bump. I'm afraid the boy is dead. Car turned over."

"But JoAnna is all right?"

Rachel was saying over and over, "What is it, Marve? What is it?"

"She's all right," Fierd said. "She's in Bayshore."

"Thank you, Sergeant. We're on our way now."